Network architectures have grown increasingly complex in communication environments. The ability to troubleshoot the degradation of flows in networks presents a formidable task. This analysis is particularly troublesome when multiple network carriers are implicated in the network, or when the call control and media flows take divergent paths through the network. Tracing activities can be used to follow media streams as they propagate in the network. As voice, video, and other applications continue to be deployed in the network, tracing activities for media streams becomes important. Efficient tracing of a media stream can reveal diagnostic information, system faults, and various other conditions that may be of interest to network operators, network carriers, device manufacturers, and network administrators.